Things needs to change, but DH strangely resistant.

[TheWeirdness]

I've nc'd for this. Sorry if things seem fuddled, but I am not exactly sure what is going on and I feel quite confused.

DH and I have been married for ten years, and together for twelve (I'm 40 and he's 38). Over those years, we've fallen into a very sedentary way of life. Things just tick along, and nothing much happens. My days are either spent at my job (which I've been doing for ten years), doing housework and cooking, or working on my project. If I work from home, there can be weeks where I don't leave the house at all, and I don't have much of a social life.

I've known for years that our set-up isn't right. I am very aware that the way we live, moreover the way I live, needs to change. I've tried to talk to DH about it in the past, but somehow there's a real resistance there. He just gets defensive and argumentative, or just listens but won't engage. When I have tried to implement lifestyle changes that, by default, involve DH, they don't last or don't come off somehow ... and it is back to the same old same old. What is strange about this is that when I implement changes that only require my own input, they work.

Anyway, things have now come to a head because I have now been diagnosed with depression. I'm finding it hard to do pretty much anything, even get out of bed. I just find myself staring at the wall for hours.

I know I need to get myself out of this situation by taking some sort of action so, this morning, I tried to talk to DH again about making some changes in the way we live. I'd like us to be much more active, and I'd like to have an idea of where we are going in life because I've really no idea anymore and, as such, I don't know how to make personal decisions or choices.

So I asked him, very simply, as a starting point, what kind of life he wanted in ten years time and what kind of things he would like to achieve. My idea was that he would tell me, then I would describe the kind of things I wanted to do and achieve, and with all this information out in the open, we could plot a path through and start living a bit more of a dynamic life.

The ensuing exchange turned into a disaster. Again. DH just seems unable to talk to me about what he wants in life in an open and honest way. Every time I spoke, his response was argumentative and defensive, even though I'd said nothing critical about him at all. By the end, I was left with a lot of pressure in my head and a mild headache, and I just felt gutted.

But I don't want to live the way we do anymore. It's staid, sedentary, boring and a very small world for me; it's like a never-ending groundhog day of either domestic or paid work, punctuated with a week's holiday every year. We are both now overweight and unfit because of the sedentary way we live, and DH's BMI has now reached "obese" (he's put on five stone in four years, and was diagnosed with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease a year ago). I also feel quite trapped. He gets a bit weird if I want to do something on my own, and I even stopped getting the train to work because he told me it gave him panic attacks (he has a fairly severe anxiety problem that he refuses to get long term help for).

I know that if I go my own way and sort life out for myself alone, and he continues to live the way he does, then in a few years, I will be a very different person and he will still be the same, and I can't see what would keep our marriage together.

I wondered if anyone had any insight into this situation at all, if anyone else had been there and had any advice? Moreover, I wanted to know what you all thought about this. I need some other perspectives.

The first thing you need to do is start doing things for yourself. Get the train, go out, maybe just go to a local cafe or park and walk or read a book. Don't give him anything but the vaguest timescale. If his 'anxiety' causes him problems then he needs to take steps to rectify it, not you modifying perfectly reasonable behaviour to pander to his whims.

It's one thing supporting him through mental illness, it's quite another when the only oerson making any changes is you and they're all to the detriment of your own mental health.

I think you should get out of this relationship tbh. And what the fuck are your parents doing colluding with this controlling and abusive man? Were they abusive too?

Oh OP this is just heart-breaking for you.

Just quietly cheering you on from the sidelines as the penny drops, do you think you could talk to your parents? They will in all likelihood have already noticed and could help you process/validate

The strange thing is that when he's not in the house, I can get up. And I can do things. But when he is in the house, something happens; I somehow can't do things.

I think this tells you everything you need to know OP. I normally don't comment on relationship threads as I feel we never can really know the other person's POV. But this thread literally brings shivers down my spine. It is hard to see when someone is controlling you when it is dressed up as concern. I have been there and it is suffocating and destructive.

Were your parents the same with you because their reactions to you being out at 630 pm seems ridiculously over protective? And your father ringing to demand you go home??.
Also i think losing your much wanted babies is having a far bigger impact on you than you have acknowledged.
It is no wonder you do not want to get out of bed.

I agree with previous posters. This man is controlling you by making you feel guilty about him, while having no consideration at all for you in return.

It's absolutely crazy that he goes out till 4am twice a week and you can't even pop to the shops after work! This is an incredibly unequal and unfair situation. Of course he doesn't want to discuss changes to the current set up - it's working fine for him. Don't be fooled by his moaning - some people just like to complain, it doesn't mean he actually wants things to change.

Can you talk to your boss about going back to full time so you are in a better financial position?

Well done for starting to see the light

You do know about the frog in the pot don't you OP? The frog is in water at a temperature that suits it. If you took that frog and chucked it in near boiling water it would jump out immediately but.....if the water is warmed slightly now and again until the water is almost boiling the frog sort of knows it;s really uncomfortable but doesn't exactly know why.
Your DH is subtly and covertly abusive and also overtly so. The vital next steps are firstly for you to recognise it for what it is and secondly for you to realise he will not change and thirdly, it is a waste of time trying to get him to acknowledge his abuse of you. It is the third step that is often the longest and most fruitless phase before you walk out the door to a much healthier (physically and mentally) future.
I have been you. When you realise, it's like a grip to the throat as you realise that the person you love most in the world is doing you significant harm. I advise you LTB and never try to explain why. He would never get it while he has a hole in his arse! He will be as resistant at hell. Remember the current situation suits him down to the ground and he doesn't care that it is sucking the life out of you.

Exactly what Pirate Cat has said. Your life will be transformed!

Can you get away for a few days to have some head space and peace, OP? If you mostly work from home I'm guessing it could be done anywhere where there's an internet connection?

On a purely practical note, working from home can be very isolating (even when you don't have someone deliberately isolating you) - I've had weeks where by about Thursday I realise I NEED to have some human contact. Then I arrange to meet a friend for lunch or go into the office.

And on another note, the treadmill is great - I have one too. But whenever possible you need to get outside to do your walking, the benefits of the sun and fresh air will all help. The treadmill is a very practical purchase for this time of year but I suspect you did it to subconsciously appease his control mechanisms, so you wouldn't have to be out of the house without him.

Finally, I wanted to acknowledge your two devastating losses, I'm so very sorry.

I am a great believer in the notion of only being able to influence your own life and actions and that trying to change someone else is not possible in the long term. There will be successes in some cases but mostly failure.

You need to work on yourself first. Let the medication kick in, get out walking. Why do you choose a treadmill when there are lots of things to see outside? Walking outside clears your head and allows you the space to think.- walking 10,000 steps a day should be the goal over time.

Stop drinking if you do. Alcohol is not good for you especially when depressed and is also full of calories. You will lose weight by combining the above.

Start to eat better. There are foods that are good for depression and therefore goood for you. Try to cut out refined sugar.

I state all of this as someone who was you 5 years ago and made the decision to do something about it for me, not for us as a couple. I would have been happy for my Husband to follow my path and change with me but he chose not to.

I am now 5 years on, 4 stone lighter, have just run a half marathon, Divorced and met someone who I suit better and who is adding value to my life rather than taking it from me.

This path is not easy I'll give you that, it took time for me to see the clouds lifting and to gather the courage to make the ultimate change to my life, ending my marriage.

I too do not have children and it is now too late for me but I have so much in my life and so much happiness that I don't think about this anymore.

I implore you not to have children with this man and to make the above changes which will change your life. The changed mine and I am a different person now.

This thread has made me feel upset too. You sound so lovely. At first I thought he was overweight and depressed, but it quickly became clear that he's more like a pig in shit. Revelling in his control of you and his 4am poker games. Driving you to work and him miraculously using the car when you want to go out. It makes me really angry.

You're going to have to get strong now, op. As a pp said, don't tell him your reasons, but start today living your life again. Don't let him be your jailor! You probably won't feel like doing much as you're reeling, but you make bloody sure of it that you go shopping today or for a very long walk around a park. Pop in and see your friends for a brew etc. Make sure you do something out of the house. Have a shower, get dressed and go!

Is he depressed too? You have been through a lot.

Do you love him?

His using your parents as weapons to control you is very chilling, both that he thinks it's ok and that they go along with it.

This isn't a situation to bring a child into.

I think your mental health would improve if you left him. He's effectively isolated you and is slowly smothering you.

Oh wow, your later posts are so revealing. He's controlled you so subtly that you didn't realise, classic boiling frog as a pp has explained

This isn't right, and you need to get away from him - what's your housing situation?

I agree with so much of what previous posters have said. His control of you has crept up so that you are now living a half life because that is what he wants for you. This lifestyle you have is making you ill. His lifestyle is also making him ill, but that is for him to recognise, acknowledge and deal with.

I think you need to deal with your own depression and isolation first. Using the treadmill to get yourself fitter is a great idea, and you should carry on doing that. But you should also commit to walking or running outside of the house every day. Even just a couple of miles. It gets you out of the house, will help with your depression and give you the opportunity to see other people and maybe engage with them. If he doesn't like then tough. He has to cope with his 'anxiety' (control) issues, not you.

Start getting the train to work again. Ignore his talk of panic attacks and just do it. It's bizarre that a grown woman has to be escorted to work and back in this way, just because he alleges to feel anxious.

I think these two things alone will help with your depression, and as that improves you may then be able to decide whether or not you want to continue living with him, or if separating would be the better option.

I really hope that things improve for you. The life you describe sounds suffocating.

Do not bring a child into this. He will be no decent role model of a father to any child.

His behaviours towards you are all controlling and therefore abusive; it all smacks of him wanting absolute power and control over you. He is the root cause of your depressed state, he has made you feel depressed because he is making you a prisoner in the gilded cage of his own paranoid making.

I would read "Why does he do that?" written by Lundy Bancroft; he is within those pages.

You need to leave this man before he completely and utterly destroys you from the inside out. He has really created for you your very own groundhog day.

Do not get pregnant with him. Don't.

Your OP sounded as if you'd outgrown the marriage. Your later updates were chilling. He's abusive and controlling - to the point where he is literally preventing you from leaving the house! Control doesn't just mean physical barriers - his 'panic attacks' work just as well as any pushing or shoving.

If you have a child with him then even if you manage to leave the relationship at a later date, you will be linked to this man for the rest of your life and I bet that he will exercise all forms of dicking about to keep jerking your chain. The Relationships thread is full of women who are still suffering at the hands of their abusive Exes, because the Ex simply uses the child as a weapon.

Leave. Leave and go far away.

Bottom line: don't sacrifice your happiness to make another happy. If what you want isn't compatible, you should go your separate ways. He's asking far too much of you.

Blimey, I agree witht he others, at first I thought he was a sad sap, now I think he is similar to my x.

My x used to take my words and repeat them back to me and give them an entirely different meaning. Whenever I challenged him about his unreasonable behaviour (and it was clear to me that he was being a dick) he put me on trial. I could see it but I still couldn't leave. For years.

I used to think to begin with, if I can just phrase this really well, he'll get it. But no, he was extremely intelligent, I was extremely articulate. So if he didn't get it, he didn't want to get it. He liked things as they were, with me bending over so far backwards to accommodate him that my back was broken and still my faults were audited.

Lundy Bancroft explains it well. Men like this are training you to never question them, never ask for anything, never voice your own needs, express your own fears. And it's working right? You ''pick your battles'' I bet. Until no battle is ever worth fighting. It's easier to just let everything slide because of their ridiculous self-absorbed, self-pitying, accusatory reaction to any small need you have.

Fuck that shit.

You have one life pet.

OP when I first came on to the thread I was going to defend your husband because I have anxiety / confidence issues (does the username give it away?) but on reading your subsequent posts, I think he is using his 'anxiety' purely to control you.

I can imagine you saying no to invitations if you know he's going to cause a scene with your family when you get home. What a great way to get you to do as your told. He's making it hard for you to assert yourself so that his life can continue as he wants.

Also, my anxiety rarely impacts DH. I know I have the issue, and as a result of this, I sometimes turn down invitations etc but I don't keep him in with me! I am not the prison warden in charge of where he goes and when - but my abusive, controlling ex used to do this. He would other be furious when I got home, or be so upset about how selfish I was, leaving him at home knowing how much he worried. Both tactics were used to get the same effect - they stopped me going out and seeing people for a long time.

If I were you, I would arrange to get yourself out of the house as often as you can manage, even if it is just for a walk. This will help with the depression and also give you space to think. Don't let it cause arguments, just state you are going and leave. Don't get trapped into saying you'll be back at X time because if you run late, you're setting up a row. And if he gets your family involved, point out the absurdity of it - "I was out for a walk. Do you really think something happened to me in the 45 minutes I've been gone, for gods sake DH, I told you where I was, why have you called the,?" Then stand and wait for an answer. When he says he was worried "you knew where I was" and repeat, over and over,

It's everything to do with him I'm afraid. I disagree strongly with the posts saying it's nothing to do with him. But perhaps they'd not have the same opinion now you've given a bit more of a picture of your life

My mental health ended up in bits after my life became smaller and smaller and harder and harder, due to my husbands manipulative control.

Your 'invisible frame' speaks volumes.

"I feel like I don't have any liberty. He tells me I can do what I want, but there's this invisible frame around everything".

It's a good thing to recognise this. To see the frame. And then you can decide what you want to do about it.

At the end, I had the secret name for it all. 'My pretty little millstones'. Sounds silly now, and I'm sharing this very personal analogy with you because your posts remind me so strongly of living that same truncated, miserable existence.

Because it was him, and others (my mother for one!) who very nicely, very 'lovingly' wrapped mill stone after millstone around my neck until I couldnt stand up under the weight. Duty, and care, and their needs, and the mysterious way I couldn't ever change or grow or achieve anything for myself. And that my own wellbeing, happiness and health were always being overlooked, sacrificed or somehow it was just so difficult to do anything except, I now realise, carry on supporting stbxh own messed up way of life for him. I was selfish and unrealistic about anything I truly desired from my life. And the huge array of tactics that meant somehow I lost every chance I had to be myself, and care for myself, and see the bright blue sky again... See that life outside your invisible frame.

I think I only existed when I was propping up other people's way of life for them... Which got harder and harder and harder, until I couldn't drag them along with me anymore. And it crushed me.

I used to dream I was drowning and was tied to weights at the bottom of a pond. Another dream was that I was trapped in a kind of slowed down state of existence, which I couldn't snap out of. I would be trying to do something completely normal and it was like moving through treacle, a huge effort to even walk a step, or speak a word, which would sound all low and weird like recorded voices do when you play it back sloooweeeerrr. It was like nails on a chalk board feeling and the most horrible dream ever. Shudder.

All of which was my subconscious brain which had got bored of me ignoring all the bloody obvious hints and evidence that something was very wrong... and so had started hammering on the door of my conscious brain going 'oi! Fish face! When are you going to NOTICE and lose the ten tonne baggage?! We've bloody drowning in here! Stop propping up everyone else's insatiable desires and stupid choices, and help yourself for a change!'

I did, eventually listen.

And it was horrible to realise what was actually happening. And it took another two years to get myself out. But I did and it was definitely the right decision. Living completely free of the invisible millstones, or frame around you, is so much lighter, and easier.

Love shouldn't reduce you. It should buoy you up.

I'm sorry you're finding yourself in a tough situation...

He will never ever agree that he is controlling.

I recognise little bits of this in my life with my XH - nothing like as bad though. He used to have terrible panic attacks that stopped me going out. If I ever did manage to persuade him to come to some event with me, he became increasingly uncomfortable and angry until we had to leave. God he drove back from Wiltshire to London once and we never exchanged a word, then everything was supposed to be fine and never mentioned again. Sorry, I couldn't solve it, I had to leave.

Does he really want a child? He sounds completely unsuited to raising an individual human being with their own very intense needs and personality.

I can't imagine any other ending than you leaving, i'm afraid, but perhaps I'm too pessimistic. If you're not ready to leave, just start living the life you want to live - sort out the depression in any way you can, get out in the fresh air whenever you can, you are right about the importance of activity. In the near future, I think a job outside the home would really help you, start thinking about that, and refuse the lifts. All very disruptive, I know, which is why I think you will end up leaving, but also note how completely normal it all is.

You need to change,start today

Do something you enjoy each day

Buy your own car or get train

Join some clubs or join gym or swim

Walk or run outside house daily

Make a little list of things you want to do a week, a month, 3 months, 6 months a year, do them all

Volunteer

Save some money

Get a full time job

Wow OP. I never really comment on relationship threads but this one has got me really upset for you. I too, at first, thought poor man, he's got anxiety/depression and needs help with that but when you said he goes out a couple of times a week and plays poker until 4am - WTAF!!

I am really interested to hear what you are making of the previous comments. There are some very wise women on this thread, some who have opened their hearts to you and realise the terrible situation you have found yourself in. It must be so hard for you to contemplate and I really feel for you. I only hope that you are believing them because I truly think you will feel a million times better out of this relationship and live the life YOU want.

Good luck to you OP, you have touched a nerve